Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are caught and tea is drunk, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound influence to broaden the religion's control. A key character, who carried young the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which seems in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from that area. The extract is viewed by various factions as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her path are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the fate of the realm. Her individual mission to reconnect with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the central struggle in a larger battle with an controlling system which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to suppress independence of reason, innovation and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the unveiling of a series of unusual fissures in the fabric of the Earth's sky: gateways that seem to open into different dimensions. A particular window appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these portals as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible reason and back to feeling, yet, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is in some way vital – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical tussle between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
